I slip out of his house before he wakes. Night air always soothes me. I roll down all the windows in the car and take the freeway toward the Superstitions. As I enter the belt of moist, cool air the citrus groves exhale, my skin tingles with Bob’s incandescence.

I think about my argument with Bob earlier in the month at the studio. How he had assumed that, “now that Frank’s dead,” I would come to my senses about my idea. I am even more inflamed about the sequence than I had been before Frank’s death. I am aware of the opposition, now. Before, Frank had seemed unaffected by it, so I rarely noticed it. Now, I am beginning to understand the value of conflict. It has informed me about the stakes. It gives me a reason to persevere.

As Bob and I continue our squalid discourses outside the office, I am beginning to feel as though it takes both of us for this project to continue. It always happens when we are beyond compromise, when we are accusing each other of fear, or some other abstract act of moral turpitude.

A good dicking between us lightens my emotional load. How does this happen between us?

I’ve never been so aware of my differences with anyone else. I’m grateful for the opposition.

This has possibilities.

My body has a separate mind. His touch is smooth and sultry, like a monsoon, heavy with moisture and heat. He needs to get in the act of confronting conflict. His voice does it. His fingers do it. His dick does it.

I consider his arguments.

She rolled toward him with her knees bent into her chest. He glimpsed the dilating hole between the backs of her thighs. He rolled back, positioned his head at her mouth and dove in. To her.

Above the city, in his office, against the glass. I am going to put it to a vote. Plead my case with the people who will benefit from this. I am looking out over the city, observing bodies moving down the sidewalks.

“You’re going to lose.” Bob is behind me, his hands on my hips, just below my waist. The heels of his palms are exerting subtle pressure. I feel my cheeks separating, my skirt anchoring in moisture. Bob lets go and steps back. He is admiring his handiwork. “I say just do it and let the lawsuits start. The sequence will be a reality, then, and if they don’t want it, we’ll force them to take it. Contractual obligations. Then, they’ll have to market it to recoup their legal costs.”

I stiffen. I don’t think I’m going to lose this one, and I don’t think I need to listen to Bob anymore to test my defense.

“This is the only way you’ve never listened to me.” His voice is childlike. He slides his hand between my buttocks to keep them separated. I tighten, gripping his fingers hard between my gluteals.

“I don’t want to listen to you, anymore. You need constant conflict.”

“That’s what the spark is,” he responds. His hand wiggles and turns between my tensed muscles. He pokes for my anus with a finger. I am still resisting. “Listen to me. I’ll bet you and Frank never had sparked sex.” His hands press my buttocks apart, against their will, and move up toward my waist. I’ve had enough. I cannot imagine us skin to skin, anymore.

I turn on him. “The act of sex, though, finally, is the resolution of that conflict. The kindling of that spark. You’re not interested in the resolution. You’re only interested in constantly defining the conflict, over, and over, and over, never resolving it. You don’t want the sparks to burst into flame. You just want to keep making sparks.”

When I stopped wanting him, I saw the pits the glacier had excavated through the Rockies, the barren scars where it had ruthlessly carved the topsoil off the bedrock as it advanced. I tired of his tirades. I grew cool, saw his redness as advanced exposure; pre-cancerous.

Text & Graphics © 1999 by Gail Rae Hudson

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